In which I listen to the five known live Garcia/Saunders performances of Merl Saunders' short-lived tune "The System" and make some long-winded observations. Just what it says on the tin, folks.
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| Merl, 9/2/74, by Greg Gaar |
"The System" was, briefly, one of the Garcia/Saunders band's long jam tunes. Like Saunders' earlier "Man-Child" and slightly later "Merl's Tune," there are only a few known recordings, but each one is stretched to the limit and provides fertile ground for a lot of improvisation. It was recorded for the Fire Up! lp by the band (with Tom Fogerty) sometime in Dec 72-Jan 73. The track on the album has lyrics, sung by both Saunders and the Edwin Hawkins Singers, although before the earliest live version you can hear someone in the band refer to it as a new instrumental.
[update: commenter nathan pointed out a dumb mistake I made, which I have fixed. So much for proofreading! thank you nathan!]
The song's structure is a modified blues in Bb with an unusual 20-bar form: eight bars of Bb, four of Eb, four of F, and four of Bb (I am sticking to jazz convention here and calling this 20-bar Bb/Bb/Eb/F/Bb progression a chorus). The jam does away with the progression and just vamps on Bb with no other chord changes. On the album, they play one 20-bar chorus instrumental, one chorus with vocals, one chorus of Merl soloing on Hammond (with the Hawkins' vocals coming in midway through), then a brief vamp on Bb with Merl soloing on ARP synthesizer before the fade at just under 4 minutes. Fire Up! wasn't released until April 1973 (according to the mentions of it that I can find in Billboard), so all but one of these live performances are from before the record came out.
A note about keyboards: Merl usually played a Hammond organ, an electric piano, and a clavinet. For a brief while he also had an ARP synthesizer (not sure of the model; an ARP Odyssey, I presume?), which he played sparingly, but always on The System. Two trademark sounds of most of these performances is his electric piano upfront, with a generous helping of wahwah pedal, and his ARP coming in at some later point in the jam.
12/28/72 The Lion's Share
This entire show deserves a full write-up: it's fantastic and there's a lot worth commenting on. The System, the final tune of the night, is missing from the second of the two circulating filesets, so double-check your copy. Earlier in the set, Roger "Jellyroll" Troy and guitarist/singer Danny Cox sit in, replacing Kahn and Fogerty, and I am pretty sure they are both still playing on this tune. An unidentified trumpet player also makes an appearance; it's apparently not Mike Price, the previously unidentified trumpeter who sat in with G/S a couple of times in 1973-74, and attendee Dave Tamarkin recalls that the trumpeter "just walked up out of the crowd" to play.
After some off-mic banter about the tune (see below), Jerry kicks it off with a Mr. Charlie-ish riff (all later versions are started by Vitt's drums). This version stays with the 20-bar form of the tune for the longest of any of these versions: the play the full form twice (by "play the form" I mean they're just playing the the song without the lyrics, basically just playing through the changes since there's no instrumental melody to speak of), then solo over the changes: Garcia, Saunders, Garcia, trumpet (for 2 choruses), Saunders, Garcia; he keeps on soloing but @11 they stop making the changes and just stick with Bb for the duration. As they set sail into open waters, Cox's guitar joins Garcia in the improv; the trumpet sneaks back in @11:50 but doesn't add much, and @12:30 Vitt kicks up the tempo. This is a glorious mess, all that you want from a high-energy, all-in group improv like this. @14 they ease back and shift gears into a new groove, and it sounds like Garcia is proposing a key change to someplace else; but Troy isn't leaving the Bb vamp, so no dice. They groove along. After @16ish, it again sounds like Garcia is thinking of spacier places, and Saunders and Vitt seem like they're there with him. I detect a thread of proto-Slipknot in the fabric @16:28. The trumpet reenters quietly while Garcia is tearing it up here. @17:45 Cox and Troy start a Bo Diddley rhythm, but Garcia is still flying high, so they don't push it until he comes back down around 19 min. Troy steps upfront to play a little lead bass, with that trumpet still quietly percolating away. @19:45 Saunders starts raining down some cool cosmic-sounding ARP stuff, as Garcia hangs in the back with Troy and Cox. Go Merl! @21 Troy starts playing a distinctive bassline (he's still in Bb), then starts playing more busy/actively, with Saunders still going crazy on the ARP, and Cox and Garcia both going off (haven't heard the trumpet for a while). Wow. @22:30 Jerry starts playing a repeated little melodic fragment that Cox picks up on -- this sounds a little Allmansy or maybe AWBYGN-ish (it's not either) -- it sounds like he's trying to rally everyone and bring this all back to earth? He and Cox toss this figure back and forth between them as everyone slowly comes in for a landing. 24:10 total. This jam is bananas and, in many ways, the most exciting of these five performances: lightning strikes and catches fire. Great, great stuff.
beforehand:
As Troy and Cox come onstage a few songs earlier, it sounds like Cox says "don't play no jazz" and Jerry replies that they'll play some blues. Before The System, there's an off-mic exchange, of which I could make out the following:
Troy(?): Merl, what do you wanna do, brother? wanna do something? ...let's do one of your instrumentals.
Cox(?): Something not too hard.
?: Let's do that new one... How does that new one go?
Jer: What's that?
? The new one of Merl's.
Jer: the one in - ah, you mean the System? Wanna try that? B flat. The System?
? How does it go?
Jer: It's a B flat (someone else: I-IV-V) Kind of like a boogaloo, like a New Orleans boogaloo, something like that... it goes Bb, then it does it a second time, then a third time, it does the same thing [this doesn't make sense and is barely audible]
?: you mean the 5th comes after the 4th?
Jer: Ask Merl, I don't remember. I remember when I play it. I don't really understand it.
"I remember when I play it. I don't really understand it." Jerry Garcia, ladies and gentlemen. If you don't know, I-IV-V refers to the chord progression: I-IV-V in the key of Bb is the shorthand way to say that the chords are Bb, Eb (the 4th), and F (the 5th) (edit: thank you again, nathan). This is one of the basic building blocks of most blues and bluegrass music, so I'm not sure why Jerry says, "I don't really understand it" -- or why nobody just says it's basically a blues in Bb, just play the first Bb for an extra 4 bars. But whatever.
Then we have three versions played close together. Given the patchy documentation of early Garcia/Saunders, it's remarkable that we have five shows from January 1973. Evidently all of Betty's tapes from this month are labeled the "Merl Saunders Experience," which could just be a short lived in-joke, or could signify something else -- I won't speculate here. Sarah Fulcher was singing with the band for this brief period.
1/19/73 Keystone
I wrote up the full show here, and now have a slightly more charitable opinion of this jam. Bill Vitt's drums kick off this and all subsequent versions, at a slightly brisker tempo than 12/28. Marty David is playing bass tonight, and after some inaudible off-mic chat about the tune, he picks up on the riff that Garcia is playing and doubles it. They play the form through once, Saunders solos (2 choruses), Garcia, Fulcher sings (1 chorus; she's not singing anything audibly related to the original lyrics), and then as Garcia starts to solo again they move off into the Bb jam. The groove is leaner and tighter here. Garcia solos first, Fulcher sings, @7ish min Saunders moves to the ARP and starts opening the music up underneath her. Marty David holds it down for all it's worth and sounds excellent. Fulcher and Garcia trade the spotlight back and forth and back again. @15:30 it feels like a change in direction is imminent, but nope, Fulcher moves back in and the jam defaults back to the groove. This happens again around 18 min: Fulcher seems like she's down for where Garcia wants to go, but they never seem to fully detach. The groove is building in intensity, though, working up to a peak @20 min with Garcia trilling a single climatic note. Pretty hot! Afterwards, Garcia again finds a distinct figure that he repeats a few times to bring everyone back down, and Marty David is right there with him. But they're not done yet: the two of them hook up for that original bassline/riff as Saunders soloing on wah'ed elec piano - yeah Merl! - this is all pretty nasty funk here. Fulcher sings over this, and they slowly bring down the intensity while riffing away underneath, and bring things to a gentle stop at 27:43. Then Fulcher asks for coffee, cream and sugar for Jerry.
1/23/73 The Boarding House (GarciaLive Vol. 12)
This is the first known version with John Kahn back in his regular place. Immediately a difference is clear: Garcia plays the same funky riff from the other versions, but Kahn's bassline is much simpler and sparser than either Troy's or David's, and leaves a huge amount of space. This gives Bill Vitt more space to just be the amazing Bill Vitt, and gives Kahn more room/flexibility to ad-lib during the more open jamming; I don't think Kahn's approach is necessarily better or worse than Troy's or David's, but it's a difference.
They play the form for 2 choruses, Garcia solos, Saunders solo (he's low in the mix!), and then it's off into the Bb vamp. The tune itself, what little of it there is, seems to be atrophying with each successive version. Saunders solos first over the vamp, then Garcia steps up. Kahn is playing a nice rolling, descending bassline in here. When Saunders moves to the Hammond @6:40 he gets even lower in the mix! What's that about? Fulcher makes her entrance @7:25 and it seems like everyone makes plenty of room for her. Speaking of mixes, her vocals are much more present here than 1/19. Saunders adds a little ARP as she starts singing, similar to the cool descending thing he does on 12/28/72 (@19:50). They turn up the intensity as she sings on. @10:40 Garcia starts soloing as she continues to bop along, but he backs off quickly and the intensity goes down within a minute. This seems like the moment in every version when a direction change is being considered. Fulcher continues free-associating here, Garcia plays a bit more, but the energy feels a little tentative, everyone's waiting for something to launch. Kahn's playing here is relatively minimal compared with Troy or David. They don't find a new way to go, so they build the energy back up, Fulcher and Garcia again taking turns leading the band. After @17 min, the energy changes for real and the vibe gets weirder: Fulcher trucks on, Saunders on ARP, Kahn mostly just sitting on Bb, and Garcia delicately doodling. And then @18:46 Garcia starts playing, out of the blue, the descending 4-chord progression that we all know as the Mind Left Body Jam.
Saunders picks up on it quickly, Kahn finds it and perks up (he puts on his Motown hat), and they all start building back up. The GarciaLive release changes tracks @20:04 when Fulcher starts singing Honey Chile, but everyone else just digs harder into that MLB jam, with Garcia starting to play over this @1:45 (in the Honey Chile track) as he would with the Dead on future MLB jams. Fulcher is singing freely as is her wont, but finds her way back to Honey Chile and @3:40 Garcia makes the shift to the Honey Chile chord progression (which, if I were in charge, is where I would have started the track).
Um, what now? Where did that come from? The Dead toyed with this idea a little bit in 1972, but it didn't become a fully-formed thing until fall 1973. Earlier in the month, Garcia had been in the studio working on Baron Von Tollbooth with Kantner, Slick, et al, but I've never fully invested in the idea that "Your Mind Has Left Your Body" was the primary origin of this jam (more on MLB). A magical little mystery, anyway, and the clear highlight of this jam, which is otherwise the least inspired one so far. Also, if these tapes were 16-track, why is Saunders mixed so damn low? Fulcher gets more love (mix-wise) on this release than on the older Bettyboards.
1/25/73 The Boarding House
Vitt kicks it off again, but this one is the slowest yet, substantially slower than the previous ones. There's a cut @1:36 so we can't know how much of the "tune" they play: they all play the form once, then Garcia solos over the form at least one time, but the cut is in the middle of this solo, so it's unclear how much is missing. After the cut, he wraps up his solo over the form and off into Bb they go. There's some float time, Garcia solos, Saunders starts on electric piano then moves to Hammond (the stereo image seems reversed on this tape, btw), and Kahn is a little busier compared with 1/23. The overall feel here is looser, almost laconic, but it's still a groove. @6:35 Garcia starts cutting the lines and getting a little spacier. Nice mellow flow to all this. They build it back up, Garcia brings it to a solid peak, then back down into the jazzier/mellower flow. @10:29 Saunders hits the ARP suddenly with a trumpet-like blast, with some jazzy Garcia comping below. Nice ARP situation happening here until @12:45ish when Garcia meanders back into the center of things. The tension is slowly building here, but they still stay in that liminal space until @14 min when everything seems to quickly slide downhill into Space and the groove drops out completely. Spikier, typically "spacey" stuff. The intensity doesn't hit full-on Tiger or Insect Fear, but goes up and down, up and down, ending with Garcia starting to form some of the Georgia On My Mind chords as everyone splashes about, and @19:13 Garcia nudges them all into Georgia. Fulcher only comes out now -- she was totally MIA for all of the System.
That was easily the weirdest and most laid back version so far. Given the cut, it's hard to say for sure about what's left of the form of the song itself, but I would bet that they took even less time in getting to the Bb vamp on this one.
7/5/73 The Lion's Share (GarciaLive Vol. 6)
One final version pops up five months later (the only one performed after the album was released). Fulcher wasn't at this show, and trumpeter Mike Price sat in for a good part of the night, but not for the System. Given how the song itself seemed to have been disintegrating throughout January, I wondered what would be left by July. But Saunders sings his lyrics here! Pretty tentatively, but there they are. Another mystery. His electric piano, which had been a distinctive feature of earlier versions, is missing here completely. He sings the first chorus, then they play one round of the form, Garcia solos for one round, and then as Saunders takes over they stay on the Bb. Another big difference here is Bill Vitt: he starts the song off at a peppier tempo than in January, and then keeps turning up the heat, steadily increasing the tempo as they go, from around 80 to almost 100bpm. He's got some fire under him tonight! Saunders solos for a while, Garcia takes over, the intensity keeps rising, so much so that by @7 min Vitt has doubled up and is playing more of a 4-on-the-floor beat than a funky backbeat. Okay, Bill Vitt, we see you! @9:15 Saunders cuts some of the heat, and drives for a while on both Hammond and ARP, with a nice airier feel even as Vitt keeps his foot on the gas. This is pretty cool! @13:20ish, Garcia steps in to joust with Saunders a bit, and then takes over. Saunders moves to the clavinet (not something I recall hearing in earlier versions) and @14:35 is playing these chiming whole notes below Garcia, which sounds pretty sweet to me. As Saunders starts soloing more, he and Garcia find a nice conversational space, both adding equal weight to the jam. Vitt doesn't let up, Garcia finds a tasty little melodic figure that he locks into, Kahn finds his way into a brief ascending 3-chord progression near the end. At 18 min it comes apart and ends fairly quickly at 18:35. Wow! That was an unexpected shot in the arm, but heck yes. Great stuff.
OK, so what does it all mean? I guess I can see why the song itself didn't stick: the 20-bar form was a little odd, not rocket science but maybe just odd enough to make it more trouble than it was worth? Otherwise it's a funky jam on a mostly a one-chord vamp. The core group, unsurprisingly, seem more comfortable going in different directions, where the first two versions with guests keep it more grounded. They're all very satisfying performances, the first and last versions sticking with me as particularly inspired, but Garcia/Saunders wasn't lacking for material that could take them to similar places, so maybe this just drifted off the radar. I dunno. But this was a fun little rabbit hole to go down.
